उपनिषद् · Mahā 3.48
॥
देवनागरी
यस्य स्त्री तस्य भोगेच्छा निःस्त्रीकस्य क्व भोगभूः स्त्रियं त्यक्त्वा जगत्त्यक्तं जगत्त्यक्त्वा सुखी भवेत्
लिप्यंतरण (IAST)
yasya strī tasya bhogecchā niḥstrīkasya kva bhogabhūḥ striyaṃ tyaktvā jagattyaktaṃ jagattyaktvā sukhī bhavet
शब्दशः अर्थ
संस्कृतIASTअर्थ
यस्य स्त्री तस्य भोग-इच्छाyasya strī tasya bhoga-icchāwho has a wife has the desire for enjoyments; whoever has a spouse has the thirst for delights
निःस्त्रीकस्य क्व भोग-भूःniḥstrīkasya kva bhoga-bhūḥfor the wifeless, where is the ground of enjoyments; for him without a wife, where is the footing for pleasures
स्त्रियम् त्यक्त्वा जगत् त्यक्तम्striyam tyaktvā jagat tyaktamleaving the wife, one has left the world; having renounced woman, one has renounced the whole world
जगत् त्यक्त्वा सुखी भवेत्jagat tyaktvā sukhī bhavetleaving the world, one becomes happy; having renounced the world, one will find happiness
अनुवाद
“Who has a wife has the desire for enjoyments; who has none — on what shall enjoyments stand? Leaving the wife, you leave the world; leaving the world, you become happy.”
संस्करण
6e0e62d8a21b · प्रकाशित 29 जुल॰ 2026, 6:29:20 am UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
Here the true target of the whole series is named, and it is worth pointing at: bhoga-icchā, “the desire to enjoy”.
All ten preceding verses led here. It was not woman that was condemned, but that for whose sake the youth was drawn to her — and the book at last says it out.
Nidāgha's logic is simple and, for his position, sound: family life has a foundation, bhoga-bhū — “the ground of enjoyments”; remove the ground, and what is built on it will not stand.
Let me say, however, where this logic does not work, for honesty requires it.
It does not work as a general rule. Thousands of celibates are full of craving, and married men can be free of it; the book itself admits this, depicting Janaka — a king with inner chambers — as a teacher of freedom (2.24–2.28). The absence of the object is not the absence of thirst: the whole inquiry into vāsanās in the second chapter is about this.
This is why the Vaiṣṇava tradition does not reduce renunciation to celibacy. Both orders — the householder's and the renunciant's — lead to the same, if there is no appropriation in them. As for the words “leaving the world, you become happy” — the world is left not by departing, but by ceasing to count it one's own.
For the youth Nidāgha the path he has chosen is straight and honest. As advice to everyone it would be wrong — and nowhere does the book give it to everyone.